After 11 years of being together, we will embark on yet another adventure. Since the beginning of our relationship, we share a passion for travelling. This post shares some of the highlights regarding our travels as “Carry on Tour”. It’s not an exhaustive list.
2009: CAMPING TURMOIL (Lausanne, Switzerland)
Our first trip together turned into an unforeseen adventure. We planned on spending a weekend camping at the lovely Lac Leman. Too bad that the newly purchased tent did not leave the train with us. Both Carole and I seem to forget stuff. Luckily we both stayed calm and the mishap was rather a source of laughter than fighting. With a thunderstorm forecasted, spending the night without a tent was not an option. 5 minutes before closing we rushed into a nearby electronics store, looking for a tent. And lo and behold, one last music festival tent was still there… Halleluya, our weekend was saved.
2009: BIRTHDAY FULL OF SURPRISES (Kingston, Canada)
6 months into the relationship I spent a semester at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Unsuspectingly Carole received flights to Canada from her parents as a gift for her 18th birthday. Carole expected us to first visit the Niagra Falls and spend the remaining days in Kingston. However, I had other plans and surprised her with a short trip to Montréal and Ottawa. This first long trip together sparked our passion for travelling together.
2010: KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ (Westcoast Canada and the USA)
Only a year later we travelled to North America again. This time we spent a full month exploring the west coast of the continent.
Our trip started in Seattle, where we rented a car (our first adventure vehicle!) and explored the lovely city including the farmers market with Rachel the pig, the Space Needle and the first Starbucks in the world.
We continued north to Vancouver. Here we spent lovely days enjoying the great summer weather riding around on a tandem bike and tasting beers at the Goose Island Brewery. We even got lucky and were there in time for the big fireworks competitions.
After a couple of days, we took the ferry to Vancouver Island where we had pre-booked a whale-watching excursion on a Zodiac. The excursion was a great experience and we got much closer to the Orcas than the bigger boats. As the sea was rough we had to wear skiing suits and googles. This is when the “forgetting things” struck again and we left our camera, full of pictures and memories in the suit. Despite some effort, we never recovered the pictures. Luckily we brought a cheap second camera to at least have a few pictures. Shortly after we bought a new camera in a nearby Bestbuy.
We continued to head south from there on, passing through Olympic National Park and along the coast of Washington. After a small detour to Portland, we enjoyed some fabulous days on the coast of Oregon. Cliffs and dunes changed along the road. They all had in common that they made a lovely route for a road trip.
Getting closer to San Francisco also meant that we got into the area where the Redwoods stand impressively tall. What a fantastic sight! Nonetheless, we pressed on, as we had a rather tight schedule planned.
More than 1500km of beautiful coast later we finally arrived in one of our main stops: San Francisco. We spent a couple of days here exploring the city and its culture.
Weatherwise we got the original package which consists of a wild mix of fog, rain, wind and sunshine. While the seals took a sunbath on Pier 39 we had prebooked a sunset trip to the infamous prison-island Alcatraz which gave us a great view of the city.
Our journey went inland now. We took the bay bridge and went to see Lake Tahoe. The lake was crystal clear and the mountain air a welcome change to the city smog. Lake Tahoe lies right on the border between California and Nevada. Hotels are built around this, having a casino in Nevada and the rest in California.
South of Lake Tahoe we made a stop at Mono Lake. Mono Lake does not have any outlets, making it full of salt. Nonetheless, there is life. Inspecting the black coastline, showed us, that it’s not mud, but millions of small flies. Let’s move on!
Ahead of us lies the highest point on our journey. Tioga pass is 3031m above sea level and was a proper challenge for our car. Crossing it, led us to Yosemite National Park. The park is famous for its climbing and beautiful nature. Looking in awe at the famous El Capitan we wondered how people can climb it, yet alone free-climb it. All over the park are bear warning signs. Yet, we didn’t see one. As hotel prices are high in Yosemite we decided to look for a room outside the park. We ended up in the ski town of Mammoth Lakes where we got off-season prices.
Next stop: the infamous Death Valley. We did not expect too much but were astonished to find a beautiful place we recommend visiting everybody. We took extra care of sticking to well-worn paths. In steep sections, we grudgingly turned off the AC to prevent the car from overheating. Just a month before a family died because they got lost in 50+ degrees weather.
Hank the Monkey: One of two travel companions
Passing old mining ghost towns we made it to Las Vegas. Luckily we found cheap rooms in the Luxor hotels pyramid. The whole city felt like one big amusement park. Instead of gambling away our money we went to see one of the shows. A cross-over between illusionist Chris Angel and Cirque de Soleil. We had hoped to score some inexpensive helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon, but had to learn, that on the weekends this is nearly impossible. This couldn’t stop us and we went on a long self-driving day trip. Seeing the sheer massiveness of the canyon made the hours spent on the road well worth it. On our way back the Hoover dam was nicely lit and the coffee kept me awake, while Carole took a nap.
Gone were the days we spent in quiet nature after we passed the Mojave Desert. In the middle of heavy traffic on huge highways, we made our way to San Diego. Especially the zoo was a highlight for us. In Coronado, we got lost and thought we were already on our way to Mexico but all was half as bad as we thought. After the craziness of Las Vegas, we enjoyed the calmer but also outgoing vibe of San Diego.
One parking ticket later, we drove north again to catch our flight back home. But not before spending some days around Los Angeles. On our way, we already had stopped to snorkel. The first time we passed the wet suites, only to learn that even in summer the pacific is freezing. The second time we had learned our lesson. We took a boat to Catalina Island, where just a couple months back Georgy Clooney married. There the water was beautiful and we had a great day. We also spent one night on the Queen Mary, which was transformed into a hotel a while back. What a blast!
Re-energized we spent the last days exploring Venice Beach, Universal Studios, the Walk of Fame and a nearby Six Flags park. In Venice Beach, we strolled along the beach and were surprised by a snowboarding competition. Universal Studios and Six Flags were both great parks. The roller coasters were way more intense then the ones in Europe and the characters were super funny.
Finally, we caught our flight, right after we shuffled around our luggage to prevent getting charged for overweight luggage. This was the end of our first major road trip. We had such a great time that many would follow, leading us to where we are now.
TO BE ADDED
This post started as a trial run, on how the blog posts work. As it was fun writing about our past travels, we might add further trips later. Possible long trips to be added:
- 2013 Thailand
- 2014 The Dominican Republic
- 2014 Iceland
- 2014 Sout East Asia (Singapore / Indonesia / Malaysia)
- 2015 China / Russia
- 2015/2016 North & South America (USA, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil)
- 2016 France
- 2017 India
- 2017 Australia
- 2018 Cuba
- 2018 Croatia
- 2019 Sri Lanka
- 2019 Corsica
Two peas in a pod!